@ Paul987, you are right there is much more to think of beyond smart phones. But we can't discount smart phones because of their increasing uses in productivity and everyday life. But yes we should look at the bigger picture and broader uses of Graphene. Electronics will definitely be one of the biggest benefactors of this material.

Samsung has comfortably set herself as leader of innovation in multifarious fields. Research and Development is at the heart of any company's continued dominance over the market. Besides benefitting the company, money spent on research pays off for the greater good of the society. It is good to see Samsung is not ignoring the importance of R&D.

Remember "Buckyballs" from a decade or so ago? Now that manufacturers with DEEP Pockets are starting to get interested in this amazing nano-technology, it may finally migrate out of physics labs and onto the agendas of all sorts of engineers.

Imagination is one limit. Adapting legacy manufacturing systems is another. Unfortunately, we will have to wait for core industrial processes to catch up to allow graphene to be produced at scale and in a manner that works with current manufacturing infrastructure. But graphene undoubtedly is pretty amazing stuff.

Even if it is a consumer product that brings graphene to the market that is still a good thing. Someone has to be the company that puts the money and effort into pushing technology. You're right though that it has many more potential uses and I think that if we see the cost of manufacturing come down because it becomes popular in consumer electronics then we're better off for it.

@PaulI agree, and I was thinking the same thing as I read the article. Not too surprising, when you consider that half the people in any given public space have their faces buried into smartphone screens :-) I came across an article that mentioned that if dopants can be introduced into graphene, it might be the next candidate material for building IC's. If wonder what the characteristic will be. Speed? Resistance to radiation? And, depending on who you ask, graphene is 200 to 5000 times stronger than steel - the imagination is really the limit here!

Agree with Paul987, mobile is an area that might gain some minor advantage, but other areas are far greater. I see huge applications in areas like transportation: cars that are much lighter, yet much stronger and safer, electric vehicles that can run much further on a battery, aircraft with greater fuel economy. Hey, even stronger but lighter bicycles if the stuff isn't too expensive.

Space exploration, where every gram of weight put into orbit takes about $20 in fuel (that's $20K per kilogram), is a prime area: The potentially higher cost of working with a material like graphene might be recovered entirely from fuel savings. We're talking about satellites that cost $200 million to build so they're not going to quibble about the high cost of a graphene part; cutting 100 kilograms of weight out of the satellite could cut launch costs by $2 million or more, particularly for high-orbit launches.

As InformationWeek Government readers were busy firming up their fiscal year 2015 budgets, we asked them to rate more than 30 IT initiatives in terms of importance and current leadership focus. No surprise, among more than 30 options, security is No. 1. After that, things get less predictable.